Three Ghost Stories............................................................................................................................................1

Charles Dickens.......................................................................................................................................1

When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand,

furled round its short pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not

have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the

steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and looked down the Line. There was something

remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not have said for my life what. But I know it was

remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the

deep trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset, that I had shaded my

From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and, raising his eyes, saw my figure high above

He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him without pressing him too soon with a

repetition of my idle question. Just then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing

into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused me to start back, as though it had force to draw me

down. When such vapour as rose to my height from this rapid train had passed me, and was skimming away

over the landscape, I looked down again, and saw him refurling the flag he had shown while the train went

I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed to regard me with fixed attention, he motioned

with his rolledup flag towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant. I called down

to him, "All right!" and made for that point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough

The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was made through a clammy stone, that became

oozier and wetter as I went down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me time to recall a

singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed out the path.

When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him again, I saw that he was standing between

the rails on the way by which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me to appear.

He had his left hand at his chin, and that left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast. His

attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness that I stopped a moment, wondering at it.

I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level of the railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw

that he was a dark sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in as solitary and

dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a drippingwet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a

strip of sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter

perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black

tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight

ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it,

Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him. Not even then removing his eyes from

This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my attention when I looked down from up

yonder. A visitor was a rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped? In me, he merely saw a

man who had been shut up within narrow limits all his life, and who, being at last set free, had a

newlyawakened interest in these great works. To such purpose I spoke to him; but I am far from sure of the

terms I used; for, besides that I am not happy in opening any conversation, there was something in the man

He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the tunnel's mouth, and looked all about it, as if

The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a

spirit, not a man. I have speculated since, whether there may have been infection in his mind.

In my turn, I stepped back. But in making the action, I detected in his eyes some latent fear of me. This put

"My good fellow, what should I do there? However, be that as it may, I never was there, you may swear."

His manner cleared, like my own. He replied to my remarks with readiness, and in wellchosen words. Had

he much to do there? Yes; that was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness and

watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual work manual labourhe had next to none. To

change that signal, to trim those lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then, was all he had to do under

that head. Regarding those many long and lonely hours of which I seemed to make so much, he could only

say that the routine of his life had shaped itself into that form, and he had grown used to it. He had taught

himself a language down here,if only to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of its

pronunciation, could be called learning it. He had also worked at fractions and decimals, and tried a little

algebra; but he was, and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures. Was it necessary for him when on duty

always to remain in that channel of damp air, and could he never rise into the sunshine from between those

high stone walls? Why, that depended upon times and circumstances. Under some conditions there would be

less upon the Line than under others, and the same held good as to certain hours of the day and night. In

bright weather, he did choose occasions for getting a little above these lower shadows; but, being at all times

liable to be called by his electric bell, and at such times listening for it with redoubled anxiety, the relief was

He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an official book in which he had to make certain

entries, a telegraphic instrument with its dial, face, and needles, and the little bell of which he had spoken. On

my trusting that he would excuse the remark that he had been well educated, and (I hoped I might say without

offence) perhaps educated above that station, he observed that instances of slight incongruity in such wise

would rarely be found wanting among large bodies of men; that he had heard it was so in workhouses, in the

police force, even in that last desperate resource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or less, in any

great railway staff. He had been, when young (if I could believe it, sitting in that hut,he scarcely could), a

student of natural philosophy, and had attended lectures; but he had run wild, misused his opportunities, gone

down, and never risen again. He had no complaint to offer about that. He had made his bed, and he lay upon

All that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, with his grave dark regards divided between me and

the fire. He threw in the word, "Sir," from time to time, and especially when he referred to his youth,as

though to request me to understand that he claimed to be nothing but what I found him. He was several times

interrupted by the little bell, and had to read off messages, and send replies. Once he had to stand without the

door, and display a flag as a train passed, and make some verbal communication to the driver. In the

discharge of his duties, I observed him to be remarkably exact and vigilant, breaking off his discourse at a

In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of men to be employed in that capacity, but

for the circumstance that while he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen colour, turned his face

towards the little bell when it did NOT ring, opened the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the

unhealthy damp), and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel. On both of those

occasions, he came back to the fire with the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, without being

Said I, when I rose to leave him, "You almost make me think that I have met with a contented man."

"I believe I used to be so," he rejoined, in the low voice in which he had first spoken; "but I am troubled, sir, I

He would have recalled the words if he could. He had said them, however, and I took them up quickly.

"It is very difficult to impart, sir. It is very, very difficult to speak of. If ever you make me another visit, I will

"I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten tomorrow night, sir."

He thanked me, and went out at the door with me. "I'll show my white light, sir," he said, in his peculiar low

voice, "till you have found the way up. When you have found it, don't call out! And when you are at the top,

His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said no more than, "Very well."

"And when you come down tomorrow night, don't call out! Let me ask you a parting question. What made

"Admit those were the very words. I said them, no doubt, because I saw you below."

He wished me goodnight, and held up his light. I walked by the side of the down Line of rails (with a very

disagreeable sensation of a train coming behind me) until I found the path. It was easier to mount than to

Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch of the zigzag next night, as the distant clocks

were striking eleven. He was waiting for me at the bottom, with his white light on. "I have not called out," I

said, when we came close together; "may I speak now?" "By all means, sir." "Goodnight, then, and here's

my hand." "Goodnight, sir, and here's mine." With that we walked side by side to his box, entered it, closed

"I have made up my mind, sir," he began, bending forward as soon as we were seated, and speaking in a tone

but a little above a whisper, "that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me. I took you for some

"I don't know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across the face, and the right arm is waved,violently

I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm gesticulating, with the utmost passion and

"One moonlight night," said the man, "I was sitting here, when I heard a voice cry, 'Halloa! Below there!' I

started up, looked from that door, and saw this Some one else standing by the red light near the tunnel,

waving as I just now showed you. The voice seemed hoarse with shouting, and it cried, 'Look out! Look out!'

And then attain, 'Halloa! Below there! Look out!' I caught up my lamp, turned it on red, and ran towards the

figure, calling, 'What's wrong? What has happened? Where?' It stood just outside the blackness of the tunnel.

I advanced so close upon it that I wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I ran right up at it, and

"No. I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards. I stopped, and held my lamp above my head, and saw the

figures of the measured distance, and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and trickling through the

arch. I ran out again faster than I had run in (for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and I

looked all round the red light with my own red light, and I went up the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it,

and I came down again, and ran back here. I telegraphed both ways, 'An alarm has been given. Is anything

Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I showed him how that this figure must be a

deception of his sense of sight; and how that figures, originating in disease of the delicate nerves that minister

to the functions of the eye, were known to have often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious

of the nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experiments upon themselves. "As to an imaginary

cry," said I, "do but listen for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so low, and to the

That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for a while, and he ought to know something of

the wind and the wires, he who so often passed long winter nights there, alone and watching. But he would

"Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident on this Line happened, and within ten hours

the dead and wounded were brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure had stood."

A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against it. It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this

was a remarkable coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind. But it was unquestionable that

remarkable coincidences did continually occur, and they must be taken into account in dealing with such a

subject. Though to be sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I saw that he was going to bring the objection

to bear upon me), men of common sense did not allow much for coincidences in making the ordinary

"This," he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and glancing over his shoulder with hollow eyes, "was

just a year ago. Six or seven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and shock, when one

morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at the door, looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre

"No. It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands before the face. Like this."

Once more I followed his action with my eyes. It was an action of mourning. I have seen such an attitude in

"I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly because it had turned me faint. When I went to

He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice giving a ghastly nod each time:

"That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at a carriage window on my side, what looked like

a confusion of hands and heads, and something waved. I saw it just in time to signal the driver, Stop! He shut

off, and put his brake on, but the train drifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more. I ran after it, and,

as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries. A beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of

the compartments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor between us."

Involuntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the boards at which he pointed to himself.

I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was very dry. The wind and the wires took up

He resumed. "Now, sir, mark this, and judge how my mind is troubled. The spectre came back a week ago.

He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that former gesticulation of, "For God's sake,

Then he went on. "I have no peace or rest for it. It calls to me, for many minutes together, in an agonised

manner, 'Below there! Look out! Look out!' It stands waving to me. It rings my little bell"

I caught at that. "Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when I was here, and you went to the door?"

"Why, see," said I, "how your imagination misleads you. My eyes were on the bell, and my ears were open to

the bell, and if I am a living man, it did NOT ring at those times. No, nor at any other time, except when it

was rung in the natural course of physical things by the station communicating with you."

He shook his head. "I have never made a mistake as to that yet, sir. I have never confused the spectre's ring

with the man's. The ghost's ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives from nothing else, and I have

not asserted that the bell stirs to the eye. I don't wonder that you failed to hear it. But I heard it."

He bit his under lip as though he were somewhat unwilling, but arose. I opened the door, and stood on the

step, while he stood in the doorway. There was the Dangerlight. There was the dismal mouth of the tunnel.

There were the high, wet stone walls of the cutting. There were the stars above them.

"Do you see it?" I asked him, taking particular note of his face. His eyes were prominent and strained, but not

very much more so, perhaps, than my own had been when I had directed them earnestly towards the same

We went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats. I was thinking how best to improve this advantage, if

it might be called one, when he took up the conversation in such a matterofcourse way, so assuming that

there could be no serious question of fact between us, that I felt myself placed in the weakest of positions.

"By this time you will fully understand, sir," he said, "that what troubles me so dreadfully is the question,

"What is its warning against?" he said, ruminating, with his eyes on the fire, and only by times turning them

on me. "What is the danger? Where is the danger? There is danger overhanging somewhere on the Line.

Some dreadful calamity will happen. It is not to be doubted this third time, after what has gone before. But

"If I telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or on both, I can give no reason for it," he went on, wiping the

palms of his hands. "I should get into trouble, and do no good. They would think I was mad. This is the way

it would work,Message: 'Danger! Take care!' Answer: 'What Danger? Where?' Message: 'Don't know. But,

His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond

"When it first stood under the Dangerlight," he went on, putting his dark hair back from his head, and

drawing his hands outward across and across his temples in an extremity of feverish distress, "why not tell

me where that accident was to happen,if it must happen? Why not tell me how it could be averted,if it

could have been averted? When on its second coming it hid its face, why not tell me, instead, 'She is going to

die. Let them keep her at home'? If it came, on those two occasions, only to show me that its warnings were

true, and so to prepare me for the third, why not warn me plainly now? And I, Lord help me! A mere poor

signalman on this solitary station! Why not go to somebody with credit to be believed, and power to act?"

When I saw him in this state, I saw that for the poor man's sake, as well as for the public safety, what I had to

do for the time was to compose his mind. Therefore, setting aside all question of reality or unreality between

us, I represented to him that whoever thoroughly discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it was his

comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not understand these confounding Appearances. In this

effort I succeeded far better than in the attempt to reason him out of his conviction. He became calm; the

occupations incidental to his post as the night advanced began to make larger demands on his attention: and I

left him at two in the morning. I had offered to stay through the night, but he would not hear of it.

That I more than once looked back at the red light as I ascended the pathway, that I did not like the red light,

and that I should have slept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see no reason to conceal. Nor did I like

the two sequences of the accident and the dead girl. I see no reason to conceal that either.

But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how ought I to act, having become the recipient of

this disclosure? I had proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact; but how long might

he remain so, in his state of mind? Though in a subordinate position, still he held a most important trust, and

would I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the chances of his continuing to execute it with precision?

Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be something treacherous in my communicating what he had

told me to his superiors in the Company, without first being plain with himself and proposing a middle course

to him, I ultimately resolved to offer to accompany him (otherwise keeping his secret for the present) to the

wisest medical practitioner we could hear of in those parts, and to take his opinion. A change in his time of

duty would come round next night, he had apprised me, and he would be off an hour or two after sunrise, and

Next evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to enjoy it. The sun was not yet quite down when I

traversed the fieldpath near the top of the deep cutting. I would extend my walk for an hour, I said to

myself, half an hour on and half an hour back, and it would then be time to go to my signalman's box.

Before pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink, and mechanically looked down, from the point from which I

had first seen him. I cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at the mouth of the tunnel, I

saw the appearance of a man, with his left sleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm.

The nameless horror that oppressed me passed in a moment, for in a moment I saw that this appearance of a

man was a man indeed, and that there was a little group of other men, standing at a short distance, to whom

he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made. The Dangerlight was not yet lighted. Against its shaft, a

little low hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports and tarpaulin. It looked no bigger

With an irresistible sense that something was wrong,with a flashing selfreproachful fear that fatal

mischief had come of my leaving the man there, and causing no one to be sent to overlook or correct what he

"You will recognise him, sir, if you knew him," said the man who spoke for the others, solemnly uncovering

his own head, and raising an end of the tarpaulin, "for his face is quite composed."

"O, how did this happen, how did this happen?" I asked, turning from one to another as the hut closed in

"He was cut down by an engine, sir. No man in England knew his work better. But somehow he was not clear

of the outer rail. It was just at broad day. He had struck the light, and had the lamp in his hand. As the engine

came out of the tunnel, his back was towards her, and she cut him down. That man drove her, and was

The man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped back to his former place at the mouth of the tunnel.

"Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir," he said, "I saw him at the end, like as if I saw him down a

perspectiveglass. There was no time to check speed, and I knew him to be very careful. As he didn't seem to

take heed of the whistle, I shut it off when we were running down upon him, and called to him as loud as I

"Ah! it was a dreadful time, sir. I never left off calling to him. I put this arm before my eyes not to see, and I

Without prolonging the narrative to dwell on any one of its curious circumstances more than on any other, I

may, in closing it, point out the coincidence that the warning of the EngineDriver included, not only the

words which the unfortunate Signalman had repeated to me as haunting him, but also the words which I

myselfnot hehad attached, and that only in my own mind, to the gesticulation he had imitated.

Under none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and environed by none of the conventional ghostly

surroundings, did I first make acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas piece. I saw

it in the daylight, with the sun upon it. There was no wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or

unwonted circumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect. More than that: I had come to it direct from a

railway station: it was not more than a mile distant from the railway station; and, as I stood outside the house,

looking back upon the way I had come, I could see the goods train running smoothly along the embankment

in the valley. I will not say that everything was utterly commonplace, because I doubt if anything can be that,

except to utterly commonplace people and there my vanity steps in; but, I will take it on myself to say that

I was travelling towards London out of the North, intending to stop by the way, to look at the house. My

health required a temporary residence in the country; and a friend of mine who knew that, and who had

happened to drive past the house, had written to me to suggest it as a likely place. I had got into the train at

midnight, and had fallen asleep, and had woke up and had sat looking out of window at the brilliant Northern

Lights in the sky, and had fallen asleep again, and had woke up again to find the night gone, with the usual

discontented conviction on me that I hadn't been to sleep at all;upon which question, in the first imbecility

of that condition, I am ashamed to believe that I would have done wager by battle with the man who sat

opposite me. That opposite man had had, through the nightas that opposite man always hasseveral legs

too many, and all of them too long. In addition to this unreasonable conduct (which was only to be expected

of him), he had had a pencil and a pocketbook, and had been perpetually listening and taking notes. It had

appeared to me that these aggravating notes related to the jolts and bumps of the carriage, and I should have

resigned myself to his taking them, under a general supposition that he was in the civilengineering way of

life, if he had not sat staring straight over my head whenever he listened. He was a goggleeyed gentleman of

It was a cold, dead morning (the sun not being up yet), and when I had outwatched the paling light of the

fires of the iron country, and the curtain of heavy smoke that hung at once between me and the stars and

"I BEG your pardon, sir, but do you observe anything particular in me"? For, really, he appeared to be taking

The goggleeyed gentleman withdrew his eyes from behind me, as if the back of the carriage were a hundred

"I have nothing to do with you, sir," returned the gentleman; "pray let me listenO."

At first I was alarmed, for an Express lunatic and no communication with the guard, is a serious position. The

thought came to my relief that the gentleman might be what is popularly called a Rapper: one of a sect for

(some of) whom I have the highest respect, but whom I don't believe in. I was going to ask him the question,

"You will excuse me," said the gentleman contemptuously, "if I am too much in advance of common

humanity to trouble myself at all about it. I have passed the nightas indeed I pass the whole of my time

"The conferences of the night began," continued the gentleman, turning several leaves of his notebook,

I could only repeat my rather snappish "O!" and ask if I might be favoured with the last communication.

"'A bird in the hand,'" said the gentleman, reading his last entry with great solemnity, "'is worth two in the

The gentleman then informed me that the spirit of Socrates had delivered this special revelation in the course

of the night. "My friend, I hope you are pretty well. There are two in this railway carriage. How do you do?

There are seventeen thousand four hundred and seventynine spirits here, but you cannot see them.

Pythagoras is here. He is not at liberty to mention it, but hopes you like travelling." Galileo likewise had

dropped in, with this scientific intelligence. "I am glad to see you, AMICO. COME STA? Water will freeze

when it is cold enough. ADDIO!" In the course of the night, also, the following phenomena had occurred.

Bishop Butler had insisted on spelling his name, "Bubler," for which offence against orthography and good

manners he had been dismissed as out of temper. John Milton (suspected of wilful mystification) had

repudiated the authorship of Paradise Lost, and had introduced, as joint authors of that poem, two Unknown

gentlemen, respectively named Grungers and Scadgingtone. And Prince Arthur, nephew of King John of

England, had described himself as tolerably comfortable in the seventh circle, where he was learning to paint

If this should meet the eye of the gentleman who favoured me with these disclosures, I trust he will excuse

my confessing that the sight of the rising sun, and the contemplation of the magnificent Order of the vast

Universe, made me impatient of them. In a word, I was so impatient of them, that I was mightily glad to get

out at the next station, and to exchange these clouds and vapours for the free air of Heaven.

By that time it was a beautiful morning. As I walked away among such leaves as had already fallen from the

golden, brown, and russet trees; and as I looked around me on the wonders of Creation, and thought of the

steady, unchanging, and harmonious laws by which they are sustained; the gentleman's spiritual intercourse

seemed to me as poor a piece of journeywork as ever this world saw. In which heathen state of mind, I came

It was a solitary house, standing in a sadly neglected garden: a pretty even square of some two acres. It was a

house of about the time of George the Second; as stiff, as cold, as formal, and in as bad taste, as could

possibly be desired by the most loyal admirer of the whole quartet of Georges. It was uninhabited, but had,

within a year or two, been cheaply repaired to render it habitable; I say cheaply, because the work had been

done in a surface manner, and was already decaying as to the paint and plaster, though the colours were fresh.

A lopsided board drooped over the garden wall, announcing that it was "to let on very reasonable terms,

well furnished." It was much too closely and heavily shadowed by trees, and, in particular, there were six tall

poplars before the front windows, which were excessively melancholy, and the site of which had been

It was easy to see that it was an avoided housea house that was shunned by the village, to which my eye

was guided by a church spire some half a mile offa house that nobody would take. And the natural

No period within the fourandtwenty hours of day and night is so solemn to me, as the early morning. In the

summertime, I often rise very early, and repair to my room to do a day's work before breakfast, and I am

always on those occasions deeply impressed by the stillness and solitude around me. Besides that there is

something awful in the being surrounded by familiar faces asleepin the knowledge that those who are

dearest to us and to whom we are dearest, are profoundly unconscious of us, in an impassive state,

anticipative of that mysterious condition to which we are all tendingthe stopped life, the broken threads of

yesterday, the deserted seat, the closed book, the unfinished but abandoned occupation, all are images of

Death. The tranquillity of the hour is the tranquillity of Death. The colour and the chill have the same

association. Even a certain air that familiar household objects take upon them when they first emerge from

the shadows of the night into the morning, of being newer, and as they used to be long ago, has its

counterpart in the subsidence of the worn face of maturity or age, in death, into the old youthful look.

Moreover, I once saw the apparition of my father, at this hour. He was alive and well, and nothing ever came

of it, but I saw him in the daylight, sitting with his back towards me, on a seat that stood beside my bed. His

head was resting on his hand, and whether he was slumbering or grieving, I could not discern. Amazed to see

him there, I sat up, moved my position, leaned out of bed, and watched him. As he did not move, I spoke to

him more than once. As he did not move then, I became alarmed and laid my hand upon his shoulder, as I

For all these reasons, and for others less easily and briefly statable, I find the early morning to be my most

ghostly time. Any house would be more or less haunted, to me, in the early morning; and a haunted house

I walked on into the village, with the desertion of this house upon my mind, and I found the landlord of the

little inn, sanding his doorstep. I bespoke breakfast, and broached the subject of the house.

"Well!" cried the landlord, in an outburst of frankness that had the appearance of desperation"I wouldn't

"If I wanted to have all the bells in a house ring, with nobody to ring 'em; and all the doors in a house bang,

with nobody to bang 'em; and all sorts of feet treading about, with no feet there; why, then," said the landlord,

The landlord looked at me again, and then, with his former appearance of desperation, called down his

The call produced a highshouldered young fellow, with a round red face, a short crop of sandy hair, a very

broad humorous mouth, a turnedup nose, and a great sleeved waistcoat of purple bars, with motherofpearl

buttons, that seemed to be growing upon him, and to be in a fair wayif it were not prunedof covering his

"This gentleman wants to know," said the landlord, "if anything's seen at the Poplars."

"Perkins? Bless you, Perkins wouldn't go anigh the place. No!" observed the young man, with considerable

"Well!" said Ikey, holding up his cap with one hand while he scratched his head with the other, "they say, in

This very concise summary of the facts was all I could learn, except that a young man, as hearty and likely a

young man as ever I see, had been took with fits and held down in 'em, after seeing the hooded woman. Also,

that a personage, dimly described as "a hold chap, a sort of oneeyed tramp, answering to the name of Joby,

unless you challenged him as Greenwood, and then he said, 'Why not? and even if so, mind your own

business,'" had encountered the hooded woman, a matter of five or six times. But, I was not materially

assisted by these witnesses: inasmuch as the first was in California, and the last was, as Ikey said (and he was

Now, although I regard with a hushed and solemn fear, the mysteries, between which and this state of

existence is interposed the barrier of the great trial and change that fall on all the things that live; and

although I have not the audacity to pretend that I know anything of them; I can no more reconcile the mere

banging of doors, ringing of bells, creaking of boards, and suchlike insignificances, with the majestic beauty

and pervading analogy of all the Divine rules that I am permitted to understand, than I had been able, a little

while before, to yoke the spiritual intercourse of my fellowtraveller to the chariot of the rising sun. Moreover,

I had lived in two haunted housesboth abroad. In one of these, an old Italian palace, which bore the

reputation of being very badly haunted indeed, and which had recently been twice abandoned on that account,

I lived eight months, most tranquilly and pleasantly: notwithstanding that the house had a score of mysterious

bedrooms, which were never used, and possessed, in one large room in which I sat reading, times out of

number at all hours, and next to which I slept, a haunted chamber of the first pretensions. I gently hinted these

considerations to the landlord. And as to this particular house having a bad name, I reasoned with him, Why,

how many things had bad names undeservedly, and how easy it was to give bad names, and did he not think

that if he and I were persistently to whisper in the village that any weirdlooking old drunken tinker of the

neighbourhood had sold himself to the Devil, he would come in time to be suspected of that commercial

venture! All this wise talk was perfectly ineffective with the landlord, I am bound to confess, and was as dead

To cut this part of the story short, I was piqued about the haunted house, and was already half resolved to take

it. So, after breakfast, I got the keys from Perkins's brotherinlaw (a whip and harness maker, who keeps the

Post Office, and is under submission to a most rigorous wife of the Doubly Seceding Little Emmanuel

Within, I found it, as I had expected, transcendently dismal. The slowly changing shadows waved on it from

the heavy trees, were doleful in the last degree; the house was illplaced, illbuilt, illplanned, and illfitted.

It was damp, it was not free from dry rot, there was a flavour of rats in it, and it was the gloomy victim of that

indescribable decay which settles on all the work of man's hands whenever it's not turned to man's account.

The kitchens and offices were too large, and too remote from each other. Above stairs and below, waste tracts

of passage intervened between patches of fertility represented by rooms; and there was a mouldy old well

with a green growth upon it, hiding like a murderous trap, near the bottom of the backstairs, under the

double row of bells. One of these bells was labelled, on a black ground in faded white letters, MASTER B.

I was rather struck by the prompt dexterity with which this young man pitched his fur cap at the bell, and

rang it himself. It was a loud, unpleasant bell, and made a very disagreeable sound. The other bells were

inscribed according to the names of the rooms to which their wires were conducted: as "Picture Room,"

"Double Room," "Clock Room," and the like. Following Master B.'s bell to its source I found that young

gentleman to have had but indifferent thirdclass accommodation in a triangular cabin under the cockloft,

with a corner fireplace which Master B. must have been exceedingly small if he were ever able to warm

himself at, and a corner chimneypiece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for Tom Thumb. The papering

of one side of the room had dropped down bodily, with fragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost

blocked up the door. It appeared that Master B., in his spiritual condition, always made a point of pulling the

paper down. Neither the landlord nor Ikey could suggest why he made such a fool of himself.

Except that the house had an immensely large rambling loft at top, I made no other discoveries. It was

moderately well furnished, but sparely. Some of the furnituresay, a thirdwas as old as the house; the rest

was of various periods within the last halfcentury. I was referred to a cornchandler in the marketplace of

the county town to treat for the house. I went that day, and I took it for six months.

It was just the middle of October when I moved in with my maiden sister (I venture to call her

eightandthirty, she is so very handsome, sensible, and engaging). We took with us, a deaf stableman, my

bloodhound Turk, two women servants, and a young person called an Odd Girl. I have reason to record of the

attendant last enumerated, who was one of the Saint Lawrence's Union Female Orphans, that she was a fatal

The year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a raw cold day when we took possession, and

the gloom of the house was most depressing. The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak turn of intellect)

burst into tears on beholding the kitchen, and requested that her silver watch might be delivered over to her

sister (2 Tuppintock's Gardens, Liggs's Walk, Clapham Rise), in the event of anything happening to her from

the damp. Streaker, the housemaid, feigned cheerfulness, but was the greater martyr. The Odd Girl, who had

never been in the country, alone was pleased, and made arrangements for sowing an acorn in the garden

We went, before dark, through all the naturalas opposed to supernaturalmiseries incidental to our state.

Dispiriting reports ascended (like the smoke) from the basement in volumes, and descended from the upper

rooms. There was no rollingpin, there was no salamander (which failed to surprise me, for I don't know

what it is), there was nothing in the house, what there was, was broken, the last people must have lived like

pigs, what could the meaning of the landlord be? Through these distresses, the Odd Girl was cheerful and

exemplary. But within four hours after dark we had got into a supernatural groove, and the Odd Girl had seen

My sister and I had agreed to keep the haunting strictly to ourselves, and my impression was, and still is, that

I had not left Ikey, when he helped to unload the cart, alone with the women, or any one of them, for one

minute. Nevertheless, as I say, the Odd Girl had "seen Eyes" (no other explanation could ever be drawn from

her), before nine, and by ten o'clock had had as much vinegar applied to her as would pickle a handsome

I leave a discerning public to judge of my feelings, when, under these untoward circumstances, at about

halfpast ten o'clock Master B.'s bell began to ring in a most infuriated manner, and Turk howled until the

I hope I may never again be in a state of mind so unchristian as the mental frame in which I lived for some

weeks, respecting the memory of Master B. Whether his bell was rung by rats, or mice, or bats, or wind, or

what other accidental vibration, or sometimes by one cause, sometimes another, and sometimes by collusion,

I don't know; but, certain it is, that it did ring two nights out of three, until I conceived the happy idea of

twisting Master B.'s neckin other words, breaking his bell short offand silencing that young gentleman,

But, by that time, the Odd Girl had developed such improving powers of catalepsy, that she had become a

shining example of that very inconvenient disorder. She would stiffen, like a Guy Fawkes endowed with

unreason, on the most irrelevant occasions. I would address the servants in a lucid manner, pointing out to

them that I had painted Master B.'s room and balked the paper, and taken Master B.'s bell away and balked

the ringing, and if they could suppose that that confounded boy had lived and died, to clothe himself with no

better behaviour than would most unquestionably have brought him and the sharpest particles of a

birchbroom into close acquaintance in the present imperfect state of existence, could they also suppose a

mere poor human being, such as I was, capable by those contemptible means of counteracting and limiting

the powers of the disembodied spirits of the dead, or of any spirits?I say I would become emphatic and

cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such an address, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the

Odd Girl's suddenly stiffening from the toes upward, and glaring among us like a parochial petrifaction.

Streaker, the housemaid, too, had an attribute of a most discomfiting nature. I am unable to say whether she

was of an usually lymphatic temperament, or what else was the matter with her, but this young woman

became a mere Distillery for the production of the largest and most transparent tears I ever met with.

Combined with these characteristics, was a peculiar tenacity of hold in those specimens, so that they didn't

fall, but hung upon her face and nose. In this condition, and mildly and deplorably shaking her head, her

silence would throw me more heavily than the Admirable Crichton could have done in a verbal disputation

for a purse of money. Cook, likewise, always covered me with confusion as with a garment, by neatly

winding up the session with the protest that the Ouse was wearing her out, and by meekly repeating her last

As to our nightly life, the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and there is no such contagion under

the sky. Hooded woman? According to the accounts, we were in a perfect Convent of hooded women.

Noises? With that contagion downstairs, I myself have sat in the dismal parlour, listening, until I have heard

so many and such strange noises, that they would have chilled my blood if I had not warmed it by dashing out

to make discoveries. Try this in bed, in the dead of the night: try this at your own comfortable fireside, in

the life of the night. You can fill any house with noises, if you will, until you have a noise for every nerve in

I repeat; the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and there is no such contagion under the sky. The

women (their noses in a chronic state of excoriation from smellingsalts) were always primed and loaded for

a swoon, and ready to go off with hairtriggers. The two elder detached the Odd Girl on all expeditions that

were considered doubly hazardous, and she always established the reputation of such adventures by coming

back cataleptic. If Cook or Streaker went overhead after dark, we knew we should presently hear a bump on

the ceiling; and this took place so constantly, that it was as if a fighting man were engaged to go about the

house, administering a touch of his art which I believe is called The Auctioneer, to every domestic he met

It was in vain to do anything. It was in vain to be frightened, for the moment in one's own person, by a real

owl, and then to show the owl. It was in vain to discover, by striking an accidental discord on the piano, that

Turk always howled at particular notes and combinations. It was in vain to be a Rhadamanthus with the bells,

and if an unfortunate bell rang without leave, to have it down inexorably and silence it. It was in vain to fire

up chimneys, let torches down the well, charge furiously into suspected rooms and recesses. We changed

servants, and it was no better. The new set ran away, and a third set came, and it was no better. At last, our

comfortable housekeeping got to be so disorganised and wretched, that I one night dejectedly said to my

sister: "Patty, I begin to despair of our getting people to go on with us here, and I think we must give this up."

My sister, who is a woman of immense spirit, replied, "No, John, don't give it up. Don't be beaten, John.

"John," returned my sister, "if we are not to be driven out of this house, and that for no reason whatever, that

is apparent to you or me, we must help ourselves and take the house wholly and solely into our own hands."

Like most people in my grade of life, I had never thought of the possibility of going on without those faithful

obstructions. The notion was so new to me when suggested, that I looked very doubtful. "We know they

come here to be frightened and infect one another, and we know they are frightened and do infect one

(The deaf stableman. I kept him in my service, and still keep him, as a phenomenon of moroseness not to be

"To be sure, John," assented my sister; "except Bottles. And what does that go to prove? Bottles talks to

nobody, and hears nobody unless he is absolutely roared at, and what alarm has Bottles ever given, or taken!

This was perfectly true; the individual in question having retired, every night at ten o'clock, to his bed over

the coachhouse, with no other company than a pitchfork and a pail of water. That the pail of water would

have been over me, and the pitchfork through me, if I had put myself without announcement in Bottles's way

after that minute, I had deposited in my own mind as a fact worth remembering. Neither had Bottles ever

taken the least notice of any of our many uproars. An imperturbable and speechless man, he had sat at his

supper, with Streaker present in a swoon, and the Odd Girl marble, and had only put another potato in his

"And so," continued my sister, "I exempt Bottles. And considering, John, that the house is too large, and

perhaps too lonely, to be kept well in hand by Bottles, you, and me, I propose that we cast about among our

friends for a certain selected number of the most reliable and willingform a Society here for three

monthswait upon ourselves and one anotherlive cheerfully and sociallyand see what happens."

I was so charmed with my sister, that I embraced her on the spot, and went into her plan with the greatest

We were then in the third week of November; but, we took our measures so vigorously, and were so well

seconded by the friends in whom we confided, that there was still a week of the month unexpired, when our

I will mention, in this place, two small changes that I made while my sister and I were yet alone. It occurring

to me as not improbable that Turk howled in the house at night, partly because he wanted to get out of it, I

stationed him in his kennel outside, but unchained; and I seriously warned the village that any man who came

in his way must not expect to leave him without a rip in his own throat. I then casually asked Ikey if he were

a judge of a gun? On his saying, "Yes, sir, I knows a good gun when I sees her," I begged the favour of his

"SHE'S a true one, sir," said Ikey, after inspecting a doublebarrelled rifle that I bought in New York a few

"Ikey!" said I, shaking hands with him warmly: I may say affectionately; "if there is any truth in these

ghoststories, the greatest service I can do you, is, to fire at that figure. And I promise you, by Heaven and

The young man thanked me, and took his leave with some little precipitation, after declining a glass of liquor.

I imparted my secret to him, because I had never quite forgotten his throwing his cap at the bell; because I

had, on another occasion, noticed something very like a fur cap, lying not far from the bell, one night when it

had burst out ringing; and because I had remarked that we were at our ghostliest whenever he came up in the

evening to comfort the servants. Let me do Ikey no injustice. He was afraid of the house, and believed in its

being haunted; and yet he would play false on the haunting side, so surely as he got an opportunity. The Odd

Girl's case was exactly similar. She went about the house in a state of real terror, and yet lied monstrously and

wilfully, and invented many of the alarms she spread, and made many of the sounds we heard. I had had my

eye on the two, and I know it. It is not necessary for me, here, to account for this preposterous state of mind; I

content myself with remarking that it is familiarly known to every intelligent man who has had fair medical,

legal, or other watchful experience; that it is as well established and as common a state of mind as any with

which observers are acquainted; and that it is one of the first elements, above all others, rationally to be

suspected in, and strictly looked for, and separated from, any question of this kind.

To return to our party. The first thing we did when we were all assembled, was, to draw lots for bedrooms.

That done, and every bedroom, and, indeed, the whole house, having been minutely examined by the whole

body, we allotted the various household duties, as if we had been on a gipsy party, or a yachting party, or a

hunting party, or were shipwrecked. I then recounted the floating rumours concerning the hooded lady, the

owl, and Master B.: with others, still more filmy, which had floated about during our occupation, relative to

some ridiculous old ghost of the female gender who went up and down, carrying the ghost of a round table;

and also to an impalpable Jackass, whom nobody was ever able to catch. Some of these ideas I really believe

our people below had communicated to one another in some diseased way, without conveying them in words.

We then gravely called one another to witness, that we were not there to be deceived, or to deceivewhich

we considered pretty much the same thingand that, with a serious sense of responsibility, we would be

strictly true to one another, and would strictly follow out the truth. The understanding was established, that

any one who heard unusual noises in the night, and who wished to trace them, should knock at my door;

lastly, that on Twelfth Night, the last night of holy Christmas, all our individual experiences since that then

present hour of our coming together in the haunted house, should be brought to light for the good of all; and

that we would hold our peace on the subject till then, unless on some remarkable provocation to break

Firstto get my sister and myself out of the waythere were we two. In the drawing of lots, my sister drew

her own room, and I drew Master B.'s. Next, there was our first cousin John Herschel, so called after the great

astronomer: than whom I suppose a better man at a telescope does not breathe. With him, was his wife: a

charming creature to whom he had been married in the previous spring. I thought it (under the circumstances)

rather imprudent to bring her, because there is no knowing what even a false alarm may do at such a time; but

I suppose he knew his own business best, and I must say that if she had been MY wife, I never could have left

her endearing and bright face behind. They drew the Clock Room. Alfred Starling, an uncommonly agreeable

young fellow of eightandtwenty for whom I have the greatest liking, was in the Double Room; mine,

usually, and designated by that name from having a dressingroom within it, with two large and cumbersome

windows, which no wedges I was ever able to make, would keep from shaking, in any weather, wind or no

wind. Alfred is a young fellow who pretends to be "fast" (another word for loose, as I understand the term),

but who is much too good and sensible for that nonsense, and who would have distinguished himself before

now, if his father had not unfortunately left him a small independence of two hundred a year, on the strength

of which his only occupation in life has been to spend six. I am in hopes, however, that his Banker may

break, or that he may enter into some speculation guaranteed to pay twenty per cent.; for, I am convinced that

if he could only be ruined, his fortune is made. Belinda Bates, bosom friend of my sister, and a most

intellectual, amiable, and delightful girl, got the Picture Room. She has a fine genius for poetry, combined

with real business earnestness, and "goes in"to use an expression of Alfred'sfor Woman's mission,

Woman's rights, Woman's wrongs, and everything that is woman's with a capital W, or is not and ought to be,

or is and ought not to be. "Most praiseworthy, my dear, and Heaven prosper you!" I whispered to her on the

first night of my taking leave of her at the PictureRoom door, "but don't overdo it. And in respect of the

great necessity there is, my darling, for more employments being within the reach of Woman than our

civilisation has as yet assigned to her, don't fly at the unfortunate men, even those men who are at first sight

in your way, as if they were the natural oppressors of your sex; for, trust me, Belinda, they do sometimes

spend their wages among wives and daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, and grandmothers; and the play is,

really, not ALL Wolf and Red RidingHood, but has other parts in it." However, I digress.

Belinda, as I have mentioned, occupied the Picture Room. We had but three other chambers: the Corner

Room, the Cupboard Room, and the Garden Room. My old friend, Jack Governor, "slung his hammock," as

he called it, in the Corner Room. I have always regarded Jack as the finestlooking sailor that ever sailed. He

is gray now, but as handsome as he was a quarter of a century agonay, handsomer. A portly, cheery,

wellbuilt figure of a broadshouldered man, with a frank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich dark

eyebrow. I remember those under darker hair, and they look all the better for their silver setting. He has been

wherever his Union namesake flies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates of his, away in the Mediterranean

and on the other side of the Atlantic, who have beamed and brightened at the casual mention of his name, and

have cried, "You know Jack Governor? Then you know a prince of men!" That he is! And so unmistakably a

naval officer, that if you were to meet him coming out of an Esquimaux snowhut in seal's skin, you would

Jack once had that bright clear eye of his on my sister; but, it fell out that he married another lady and took

her to South America, where she died. This was a dozen years ago or more. He brought down with him to our

haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for, he is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling, is

mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs a piece in his portmanteau. He had also

volunteered to bring with him one "Nat Beaver," an old comrade of his, captain of a merchantman. Mr.

Beaver, with a thickset wooden face and figure, and apparently as hard as a block all over, proved to be an

intelligent man, with a world of watery experiences in him, and great practical knowledge. At times, there

was a curious nervousness about him, apparently the lingering result of some old illness; but, it seldom lasted

many minutes. He got the Cupboard Room, and lay there next to Mr. Undery, my friend and solicitor: who

came down, in an amateur capacity, "to go through with it," as he said, and who plays whist better than the

whole Law List, from the red cover at the beginning to the red cover at the end.

I never was happier in my life, and I believe it was the universal feeling among us. Jack Governor, always a

man of wonderful resources, was Chief Cook, and made some of the best dishes I ever ate, including

unapproachable curries. My sister was pastrycook and confectioner. Starling and I were Cook's Mate, turn

and turn about, and on special occasions the chief cook "pressed" Mr. Beaver. We had a great deal of

outdoor sport and exercise, but nothing was neglected within, and there was no illhumour or

misunderstanding among us, and our evenings were so delightful that we had at least one good reason for

We had a few night alarms in the beginning. On the first night, I was knocked up by Jack with a most

wonderful ship's lantern in his hand, like the gills of some monster of the deep, who informed me that he

"was going aloft to the main truck," to have the weathercock down. It was a stormy night and I remonstrated;

but Jack called my attention to its making a sound like a cry of despair, and said somebody would be "hailing

a ghost" presently, if it wasn't done. So, up to the top of the house, where I could hardly stand for the wind,

we went, accompanied by Mr. Beaver; and there Jack, lantern and all, with Mr. Beaver after him, swarmed up

to the top of a cupola, some two dozen feet above the chimneys, and stood upon nothing particular, coolly

knocking the weathercock off, until they both got into such good spirits with the wind and the height, that I

thought they would never come down. Another night, they turned out again, and had a chimneycowl off.

Another night, they cut a sobbing and gulping waterpipe away. Another night, they found out something

else. On several occasions, they both, in the coolest manner, simultaneously dropped out of their respective

bedroom windows, hand over hand by their counterpanes, to "overhaul" something mysterious in the garden.

The engagement among us was faithfully kept, and nobody revealed anything. All we knew was, if any one's

When I established myself in the triangular garret which had gained so distinguished a reputation, my

thoughts naturally turned to Master B. My speculations about him were uneasy and manifold. Whether his

Christian name was Benjamin, Bissextile (from his having been born in Leap Year), Bartholomew, or Bill.

Whether the initial letter belonged to his family name, and that was Baxter, Black, Brown, Barker, Buggins,

Baker, or Bird. Whether he was a foundling, and had been baptized B. Whether he was a lionhearted boy,

and B. was short for Briton, or for Bull. Whether he could possibly have been kith and kin to an illustrious

lady who brightened my own childhood, and had come of the blood of the brilliant Mother Bunch?

With these profitless meditations I tormented myself much. I also carried the mysterious letter into the

appearance and pursuits of the deceased; wondering whether he dressed in Blue, wore Boots (he couldn't

have been Bald), was a boy of Brains, liked Books, was good at Bowling, had any skill as a Boxer, even in

his Buoyant Boyhood Bathed from a Bathingmachine at Bognor, Bangor, Bournemouth, Brighton, or

It was not long before I remarked that I never by any hazard had a dream of Master B., or of anything

belonging to him. But, the instant I awoke from sleep, at whatever hour of the night, my thoughts took him

up, and roamed away, trying to attach his initial letter to something that would fit it and keep it quiet.

For six nights, I had been worried this in Master B.'s room, when I began to perceive that things were going

The first appearance that presented itself was early in the morning when it was but just daylight and no more.

I was standing shaving at my glass, when I suddenly discovered, to my consternation and amazement, that I

I trembled and looked over my shoulder; nothing there. I looked again in the glass, and distinctly saw the

features and expression of a boy, who was shaving, not to get rid of a beard, but to get one. Extremely

troubled in my mind, I took a few turns in the room, and went back to the lookingglass, resolved to steady

my hand and complete the operation in which I had been disturbed. Opening my eyes, which I had shut while

recovering my firmness, I now met in the glass, looking straight at me, the eyes of a young man of four or

five and twenty. Terrified by this new ghost, I closed my eyes, and made a strong effort to recover myself.

Opening them again, I saw, shaving his cheek in the glass, my father, who has long been dead. Nay, I even

Although naturally much affected by these remarkable visitations, I determined to keep my secret, until the

time agreed upon for the present general disclosure. Agitated by a multitude of curious thoughts, I retired to

my room, that night, prepared to encounter some new experience of a spectral character. Nor was my

preparation needless, for, waking from an uneasy sleep at exactly two o'clock in the morning, what were my

I sprang up, and the skeleton sprang up also. I then heard a plaintive voice saying, "Where am I? What is

become of me?" and, looking hard in that direction, perceived the ghost of Master B.

The young spectre was dressed in an obsolete fashion: or rather, was not so much dressed as put into a case of

inferior pepperandsalt cloth, made horrible by means of shining buttons. I observed that these buttons went,

in a double row, over each shoulder of the young ghost, and appeared to descend his back. He wore a frill

round his neck. His right hand (which I distinctly noticed to be inky) was laid upon his stomach; connecting

this action with some feeble pimples on his countenance, and his general air of nausea, I concluded this ghost

to be the ghost of a boy who had habitually taken a great deal too much medicine.

"Where am I?" said the little spectre, in a pathetic voice. "And why was I born in the Calomel days, and why

"Where is my little sister," said the ghost, "and where my angelic little wife, and where is the boy I went to

I entreated the phantom to be comforted, and above all things to take heart respecting the loss of the boy he

went to school with. I represented to him that probably that boy never did, within human experience, come

out well, when discovered. I urged that I myself had, in later life, turned up several boys whom I went to

school with, and none of them had at all answered. I expressed my humble belief that that boy never did

answer. I represented that he was a mythic character, a delusion, and a snare. I recounted how, the last time I

found him, I found him at a dinner party behind a wall of white cravat, with an inconclusive opinion on every

possible subject, and a power of silent boredom absolutely Titanic. I related how, on the strength of our

having been together at "Old Doylance's," he had asked himself to breakfast with me (a social offence of the

largest magnitude); how, fanning my weak embers of belief in Doylance's boys, I had let him in; and how, he

had proved to be a fearful wanderer about the earth, pursuing the race of Adam with inexplicable notions

concerning the currency, and with a proposition that the Bank of England should, on pain of being abolished,

instantly strike off and circulate, God knows how many thousand millions of tenandsixpenny notes.

The ghost heard me in silence, and with a fixed stare. "Barber!" it apostrophised me when I had finished.

"Condemned," said the ghost, "to shave a constant change of customersnow, menow, a young

mannow, thyself as thou artnow, thy fathernow, thy grandfather; condemned, too, to lie down with a

I had felt, even before the words were uttered, that I was under a spell to pursue the phantom. I immediately

Most people know what long and fatiguing night journeys had been forced upon the witches who used to

confess, and who, no doubt, told the exact truthparticularly as they were always assisted with leading

questions, and the Torture was always ready. I asseverate that, during my occupation of Master B.'s room, I

was taken by the ghost that haunted it, on expeditions fully as long and wild as any of those. Assuredly, I was

presented to no shabby old man with a goat's horns and tail (something between Pan and an old clothesman),

holding conventional receptions, as stupid as those of real life and less decent; but, I came upon other things

Confident that I speak the truth and shall be believed, I declare without hesitation that I followed the ghost, in

the first instance on a broomstick, and afterwards on a rockinghorse. The very smell of the animal's

paintespecially when I brought it out, by making him warmI am ready to swear to. I followed the ghost,

afterwards, in a hackney coach; an institution with the peculiar smell of which, the present generation is

unacquainted, but to which I am again ready to swear as a combination of stable, dog with the mange, and

very old bellows. (In this, I appeal to previous generations to confirm or refute me.) I pursued the phantom,

on a headless donkey: at least, upon a donkey who was so interested in the state of his stomach that his head

was always down there, investigating it; on ponies, expressly born to kick up behind; on roundabouts and

swings, from fairs; in the first cabanother forgotten institution where the fare regularly got into bed, and

Not to trouble you with a detailed account of all my travels in pursuit of the ghost of Master B., which were

longer and more wonderful than those of Sinbad the Sailor, I will confine myself to one experience from

I was marvellously changed. I was myself, yet not myself. I was conscious of something within me, which

has been the same all through my life, and which I have always recognised under all its phases and varieties

as never altering, and yet I was not the I who had gone to bed in Master B.'s room. I had the smoothest of

faces and the shortest of legs, and I had taken another creature like myself, also with the smoothest of faces

and the shortest of legs, behind a door, and was confiding to him a proposition of the most astounding nature.

The other creature assented warmly. He had no notion of respectability, neither had I. It was the custom of

the East, it was the way of the good Caliph Haroun Alraschid (let me have the corrupted name again for once,

it is so scented with sweet memories!), the usage was highly laudable, and most worthy of imitation. "O, yes!

It was not because we entertained the faintest doubts of the meritorious character of the Oriental

establishment we proposed to import, that we perceived it must be kept a secret from Miss Griffin. It was

because we knew Miss Griffin to be bereft of human sympathies, and incapable of appreciating the greatness

of the great Haroun. Mystery impenetrably shrouded from Miss Griffin then, let us entrust it to Miss Bule.

We were ten in Miss Griffin's establishment by Hampstead Ponds; eight ladies and two gentlemen. Miss

Bule, whom I judge to have attained the ripe age of eight or nine, took the lead in society. I opened the

subject to her in the course of the day, and proposed that she should become the Favourite.

Miss Bule, after struggling with the diffidence so natural to, and charming in, her adorable sex, expressed

herself as flattered by the idea, but wished to know how it was proposed to provide for Miss Pipson? Miss

Bulewho was understood to have vowed towards that young lady, a friendship, halves, and no secrets, until

death, on the Church Service and Lessons complete in two volumes with case and lockMiss Bule said she

could not, as the friend of Pipson, disguise from herself, or me, that Pipson was not one of the common.

Now, Miss Pipson, having curly hair and blue eyes (which was my idea of anything mortal and feminine that

was called Fair), I promptly replied that I regarded Miss Pipson in the light of a Fair Circassian.

I replied that she must be inveigled by a Merchant, brought to me veiled, and purchased as a slave.

[The other creature had already fallen into the second male place in the State, and was set apart for Grand

Vizier. He afterwards resisted this disposal of events, but had his hair pulled until he yielded.]

"Zobeide, no," I replied; "you will ever be the favourite Sultana; the first place in my heart, and on my throne,

Miss Bule, upon that assurance, consented to propound the idea to her seven beautiful companions. It

occurring to me, in the course of the same day, that we knew we could trust a grinning and goodnatured soul

called Tabby, who was the serving drudge of the house, and had no more figure than one of the beds, and

upon whose face there was always more or less blacklead, I slipped into Miss Bule's hand after supper, a

little note to that effect; dwelling on the blacklead as being in a manner deposited by the finger of

Providence, pointing Tabby out for Mesrour, the celebrated chief of the Blacks of the Hareem.

There were difficulties in the formation of the desired institution, as there are in all combinations. The other

creature showed himself of a low character, and, when defeated in aspiring to the throne, pretended to have

conscientious scruples about prostrating himself before the Caliph; wouldn't call him Commander of the

Faithful; spoke of him slightingly and inconsistently as a mere "chap;" said he, the other creature, "wouldn't

play"Play!and was otherwise coarse and offensive. This meanness of disposition was, however, put

down by the general indignation of an united Seraglio, and I became blessed in the smiles of eight of the

The smiles could only be bestowed when Miss Griffin was looking another way, and only then in a very wary

manner, for there was a legend among the followers of the Prophet that she saw with a little round ornament

in the middle of the pattern on the back of her shawl. But every day after dinner, for an hour, we were all

together, and then the Favourite and the rest of the Royal Hareem competed who should most beguile the

leisure of the Serene Haroun reposing from the cares of Statewhich were generally, as in most affairs of

State, of an arithmetical character, the Commander of the Faithful being a fearful boggler at a sum.

On these occasions, the devoted Mesrour, chief of the Blacks of the Hareem, was always in attendance (Miss

Griffin usually ringing for that officer, at the same time, with great vehemence), but never acquitted himself

in a manner worthy of his historical reputation. In the first place, his bringing a broom into the Divan of the

Caliph, even when Haroun wore on his shoulders the red robe of anger (Miss Pipson's pelisse), though it

might be got over for the moment, was never to be quite satisfactorily accounted for. In the second place, his

breaking out into grinning exclamations of "Lork you pretties!" was neither Eastern nor respectful. In the

third place, when specially instructed to say "Bismillah!" he always said "Hallelujah!" This officer, unlike his

class, was too goodhumoured altogether, kept his mouth open far too wide, expressed approbation to an

incongruous extent, and even onceit was on the occasion of the purchase of the Fair Circassian for five

hundred thousand purses of gold, and cheap, tooembraced the Slave, the Favourite, and the Caliph, all

round. (Parenthetically let me say God bless Mesrour, and may there have been sons and daughters on that

Miss Griffin was a model of propriety, and I am at a loss to imagine what the feelings of the virtuous woman

would have been, if she had known, when she paraded us down the Hampstead Road two and two, that she

was walking with a stately step at the head of Polygamy and Mahomedanism. I believe that a mysterious and

terrible joy with which the contemplation of Miss Griffin, in this unconscious state, inspired us, and a grim

sense prevalent among us that there was a dreadful power in our knowledge of what Miss Griffin (who knew

all things that could be learnt out of book) didn't know, were the mainspring of the preservation of our secret.

It was wonderfully kept, but was once upon the verge of selfbetrayal. The danger and escape occurred upon

a Sunday. We were all ten ranged in a conspicuous part of the gallery at church, with Miss Griffin at our

headas we were every Sundayadvertising the establishment in an unsecular sort of waywhen the

description of Solomon in his domestic glory happened to be read. The moment that monarch was thus

referred to, conscience whispered me, "Thou, too, Haroun!" The officiating minister had a cast in his eye, and

it assisted conscience by giving him the appearance of reading personally at me. A crimson blush, attended

by a fearful perspiration, suffused my features. The Grand Vizier became more dead than alive, and the

whole Seraglio reddened as if the sunset of Bagdad shone direct upon their lovely faces. At this portentous

time the awful Griffin rose, and balefully surveyed the children of Islam. My own impression was, that

Church and State had entered into a conspiracy with Miss Griffin to expose us, and that we should all be put

into white sheets, and exhibited in the centre aisle. But, so Westerlyif I may be allowed the expression as

opposite to Eastern associationswas Miss Griffin's sense of rectitude, that she merely suspected Apples,

I have called the Seraglio, united. Upon the question, solely, whether the Commander of the Faithful durst

exercise a right of kissing in that sanctuary of the palace, were its peerless inmates divided. Zobeide asserted

a counterright in the Favourite to scratch, and the fair Circassian put her face, for refuge, into a green baize

bag, originally designed for books. On the other hand, a young antelope of transcendent beauty from the

fruitful plains of Camden Town (whence she had been brought, by traders, in the halfyearly caravan that

crossed the intermediate desert after the holidays), held more liberal opinions, but stipulated for limiting the

benefit of them to that dog, and son of a dog, the Grand Vizier who had no rights, and was not in question.

At length, the difficulty was compromised by the installation of a very youthful slave as Deputy. She, raised

upon a stool, officially received upon her cheeks the salutes intended by the gracious Haroun for other

Sultanas, and was privately rewarded from the coffers of the Ladies of the Hareem.

And now it was, at the full height of enjoyment of my bliss, that I became heavily troubled. I began to think

of my mother, and what she would say to my taking home at Midsummer eight of the most beautiful of the

daughters of men, but all unexpected. I thought of the number of beds we made up at our house, of my

father's income, and of the baker, and my despondency redoubled. The Seraglio and malicious Vizier,

divining the cause of their Lord's unhappiness, did their utmost to augment it. They professed unbounded

fidelity, and declared that they would live and die with him. Reduced to the utmost wretchedness by these

protestations of attachment, I lay awake, for hours at a time, ruminating on my frightful lot. In my despair, I

think I might have taken an early opportunity of falling on my knees before Miss Griffin, avowing my

resemblance to Solomon, and praying to be dealt with according to the outraged laws of my country, if an

One day, we were out walking, two and twoon which occasion the Vizier had his usual instructions to take

note of the boy at the turnpike, and if he profanely gazed (which he always did) at the beauties of the

Hareem, to have him bowstrung in the course of the nightand it happened that our hearts were veiled in

gloom. An unaccountable action on the part of the antelope had plunged the State into disgrace. That

charmer, on the representation that the previous day was her birthday, and that vast treasures had been sent in

a hamper for its celebration (both baseless assertions), had secretly but most pressingly invited thirtyfive

neighbouring princes and princesses to a ball and supper: with a special stipulation that they were "not to be

fetched till twelve." This wandering of the antelope's fancy, led to the surprising arrival at Miss Griffin's

door, in divers equipages and under various escorts, of a great company in full dress, who were deposited on

the top step in a flush of high expectancy, and who were dismissed in tears. At the beginning of the double

knocks attendant on these ceremonies, the antelope had retired to a back attic, and bolted herself in; and at

every new arrival, Miss Griffin had gone so much more and more distracted, that at last she had been seen to

tear her front. Ultimate capitulation on the part of the offender, had been followed by solitude in the

linencloset, bread and water and a lecture to all, of vindictive length, in which Miss Griffin had used

expressions: Firstly, "I believe you all of you knew of it;" Secondly, "Every one of you is as wicked as

Under these circumstances, we were walking drearily along; and I especially, with my. Moosulmaun

responsibilities heavy on me, was in a very low state of mind; when a strange man accosted Miss Griffin,

and, after walking on at her side for a little while and talking with her, looked at me. Supposing him to be a

minion of the law, and that my hour was come, I instantly ran away, with the general purpose of making for

The whole Seraglio cried out, when they saw me making off as fast as my legs would carry me (I had an

impression that the first turning on the left, and round by the publichouse, would be the shortest way to the

Pyramids), Miss Griffin screamed after me, the faithless Vizier ran after me, and the boy at the turnpike

dodged me into a corner, like a sheep, and cut me off. Nobody scolded me when I was taken and brought

back; Miss Griffin only said, with a stunning gentleness, This was very curious! Why had I run away when

If I had had any breath to answer with, I dare say I should have made no answer; having no breath, I certainly

made none. Miss Griffin and the strange man took me between them, and walked me back to the palace in a

sort of state; but not at all (as I couldn't help feeling, with astonishment) in culprit state.

When we got there, we went into a room by ourselves, and Miss Griffin called in to her assistance, Mesrour,

chief of the dusky guards of the Hareem. Mesrour, on being whispered to, began to shed tears. "Bless you,

"Lord temper the wind to you, my lamb!" said the good Mesrour, kneeling down, that I might have a

Haroun Alraschid took to flight at the words; the Seraglio vanished; from that moment, I never again saw one

I was taken home, and there was Debt at home as well as Death, and we had a sale there. My own little bed

was so superciliously looked upon by a Power unknown to me, hazily called "The Trade," that a brass

coalscuttle, a roastingjack, and a birdcage, were obliged to be put into it to make a Lot of it, and then it

went for a song. So I heard mentioned, and I wondered what song, and thought what a dismal song it must

Then, I was sent to a great, cold, bare, school of big boys; where everything to eat and wear was thick and

clumpy, without being enough; where everybody, largo and small, was cruel; where the boys knew all about

the sale, before I got there, and asked me what I had fetched, and who had bought me, and hooted at me,

"Going, going, gone!" I never whispered in that wretched place that I had been Haroun, or had had a

Seraglio: for, I knew that if I mentioned my reverses, I should be so worried, that I should have to drown

Ah me, ah me! No other ghost has haunted the boy's room, my friends, since I have occupied it, than the

ghost of my own childhood, the ghost of my own innocence, the ghost of my own airy belief. Many a time

have I pursued the phantom: never with this man's stride of mine to come up with it, never with these man's

hands of mine to touch it, never more to this man's heart of mine to hold it in its purity. And here you see me

working out, as cheerfully and thankfully as I may, my doom of shaving in the glass a constant change of

customers, and of lying down and rising up with the skeleton allotted to me for my mortal companion.

I have always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even among persons of superior intelligence and culture,

as to imparting their own psychological experiences when those have been of a strange sort. Almost all men

are afraid that what they could relate in such wise would find no parallel or response in a listener's internal

life, and might be suspected or laughed at. A truthful traveller, who should have seen some extraordinary

creature in the likeness of a seaserpent, would have no fear of mentioning it; but the same traveller, having

had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary of thought, vision (socalled), dream, or other remarkable

mental impression, would hesitate considerably before he would own to it. To this reticence I attribute much

of the obscurity in which such subjects are involved. We do not habitually communicate our experiences of

these subjective things as we do our experiences of objective creation. The consequence is, that the general

stock of experience in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in respect of being miserably

In what I am going to relate, I have no intention of setting up, opposing, or supporting, any theory whatever. I

know the history of the Bookseller of Berlin, I have studied the case of the wife of a late Astronomer Royal

as related by Sir David Brewster, and I have followed the minutest details of a much more remarkable case of

Spectral Illusion occurring within my private circle of friends. It may be necessary to state as to this last, that

the sufferer (a lady) was in no degree, however distant, related to me. A mistaken assumption on that head

might suggest an explanation of a part of my own case,but only a part,which would be wholly without

foundation. It cannot be referred to my inheritance of any developed peculiarity, nor had I ever before any at

all similar experience, nor have I ever had any at all similar experience since.

It does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a certain murder was committed in England, which

attracted great attention. We hear more than enough of murderers as they rise in succession to their atrocious

eminence, and I would bury the memory of this particular brute, if I could, as his body was buried, in

Newgate Jail. I purposely abstain from giving any direct clue to the criminal's individuality.

When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fellor I ought rather to say, for I cannot be too precise

in my facts, it was nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fellon the man who was afterwards brought

to trial. As no reference was at that time made to him in the newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any

description of him can at that time have been given in the newspapers. It is essential that this fact be

Unfolding at breakfast my morning paper, containing the account of that first discovery, I found it to be

deeply interesting, and I read it with close attention. I read it twice, if not three times. The discovery had been

made in a bedroom, and, when I laid down the paper, I was aware of a flashrushflowI do not know

what to call it,no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive,in which I seemed to see that bedroom

passing through my room, like a picture impossibly painted on a running river. Though almost instantaneous

in its passing, it was perfectly clear; so clear that I distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the absence

It was in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation, but in chambers in Piccadilly, very near to the

corner of St. James's Street. It was entirely new to me. I was in my easychair at the moment, and the

sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver which started the chair from its position. (But it is to be

noted that the chair ran easily on castors.) I went to one of the windows (there are two in the room, and the

room is on the second floor) to refresh my eyes with the moving objects down in Piccadilly. It was a bright

autumn morning, and the street was sparkling and cheerful. The wind was high. As I looked out, it brought

down from the Park a quantity of fallen leaves, which a gust took, and whirled into a spiral pillar. As the

pillar fell and the leaves dispersed, I saw two men on the opposite side of the way, going from West to East.

They were one behind the other. The foremost man often looked back over his shoulder. The second man

followed him, at a distance of some thirty paces, with his right hand menacingly raised. First, the singularity

and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so public a thoroughfare attracted my attention; and next, the

more remarkable circumstance that nobody heeded it. Both men threaded their way among the other

passengers with a smoothness hardly consistent even with the action of walking on a pavement; and no single

creature, that I could see, gave them place, touched them, or looked after them. In passing before my

windows, they both stared up at me. I saw their two faces very distinctly, and I knew that I could recognise

them anywhere. Not that I had consciously noticed anything very remarkable in either face, except that the

man who went first had an unusually lowering appearance, and that the face of the man who followed him

I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole establishment. My occupation is in a certain

Branch Bank, and I wish that my duties as head of a Department were as light as they are popularly supposed

to be. They kept me in town that autumn, when I stood in need of change. I was not ill, but I was not well.

My reader is to make the most that can be reasonably made of my feeling jaded, having a depressing sense

upon me of a monotonous life, and being "slightly dyspeptic." I am assured by my renowned doctor that my

real state of health at that time justifies no stronger description, and I quote his own from his written answer

As the circumstances of the murder, gradually unravelling, took stronger and stronger possession of the

public mind, I kept them away from mine by knowing as little about them as was possible in the midst of the

universal excitement. But I knew that a verdict of Wilful Murder had been found against the suspected

murderer, and that he had been committed to Newgate for trial. I also knew that his trial had been postponed

over one Sessions of the Central Criminal Court, on the ground of general prejudice and want of time for the

preparation of the defence. I may further have known, but I believe I did not, when, or about when, the

My sittingroom, bedroom, and dressingroom, are all on one floor. With the last there is no communication

but through the bedroom. True, there is a door in it, once communicating with the staircase; but a part of the

fitting of my bath has beenand had then been for some yearsfixed across it. At the same period, and as a

I was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some directions to my servant before he went to bed. My

face was towards the only available door of communication with the dressingroom, and it was closed. My

servant's back was towards that door. While I was speaking to him, I saw it open, and a man look in, who

very earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me. That man was the man who had gone second of the two

The figure, having beckoned, drew back, and closed the door. With no longer pause than was made by my

crossing the bedroom, I opened the dressingroom door, and looked in. I had a lighted candle already in my

hand. I felt no inward expectation of seeing the figure in the dressingroom, and I did not see it there.

Conscious that my servant stood amazed, I turned round to him, and said: "Derrick, could you believe that in

my cool senses I fancied I saw a" As I there laid my hand upon his breast, with a sudden start he trembled

Now I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty and attached servant for more than twenty years, had

any impression whatever of having seen any such figure, until I touched him. The change in him was so

startling, when I touched him, that I fully believe he derived his impression in some occult manner from me

I bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and I gave him a dram, and was glad to take one myself. Of what had

preceded that night's phenomenon, I told him not a single word. Reflecting on it, I was absolutely certain that

I had never seen that face before, except on the one occasion in Piccadilly. Comparing its expression when

beckoning at the door with its expression when it had stared up at me as I stood at my window, I came to the

conclusion that on the first occasion it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory, and that on the second

I was not very comfortable that night, though I felt a certainty, difficult to explain, that the figure would not

return. At daylight I fell into a heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John Derrick's coming to my

This paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an altercation at the door between its bearer and my servant.

It was a summons to me to serve upon a Jury at the forthcoming Sessions of the Central Criminal Court at the

Old Bailey. I had never before been summoned on such a Jury, as John Derrick well knew. He believedI

am not certain at this hour whether with reason or otherwisethat that class of Jurors were customarily

chosen on a lower qualification than mine, and he had at first refused to accept the summons. The man who

served it had taken the matter very coolly. He had said that my attendance or nonattendance was nothing to

him; there the summons was; and I should deal with it at my own peril, and not at his.

For a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to this call, or take no notice of it. I was not conscious

of the slightest mysterious bias, influence, or attraction, one way or other. Of that I am as strictly sure as of

every other statement that I make here. Ultimately I decided, as a break in the monotony of my life, that I

The appointed morning was a raw morning in the month of November. There was a dense brown fog in

Piccadilly, and it became positively black and in the last degree oppressive East of Temple Bar. I found the

passages and staircases of the CourtHouse flaringly lighted with gas, and the Court itself similarly

illuminated. I THINK that, until I was conducted by officers into the Old Court and saw its crowded state, I

did not know that the Murderer was to be tried that day. I THINK that, until I was so helped into the Old

Court with considerable difficulty, I did not know into which of the two Courts sitting my summons would

take me. But this must not be received as a positive assertion, for I am not completely satisfied in my mind on

I took my seat in the place appropriated to Jurors in waiting, and I looked about the Court as well as I could

through the cloud of fog and breath that was heavy in it. I noticed the black vapour hanging like a murky

curtain outside the great windows, and I noticed the stifled sound of wheels on the straw or tan that was

littered in the street; also, the hum of the people gathered there, which a shrill whistle, or a louder song or hail

than the rest, occasionally pierced. Soon afterwards the Judges, two in number, entered, and took their seats.

The buzz in the Court was awfully hushed. The direction was given to put the Murderer to the bar. He

appeared there. And in that same instant I recognised in him the first of the two men who had gone down

If my name had been called then, I doubt if I could have answered to it audibly. But it was called about sixth

or eighth in the panel, and I was by that time able to say, "Here!" Now, observe. As I stepped into the box,

the prisoner, who had been looking on attentively, but with no sign of concern, became violently agitated, and

beckoned to his attorney. The prisoner's wish to challenge me was so manifest, that it occasioned a pause,

during which the attorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his client, and shook his head. I

afterwards had it from that gentleman, that the prisoner's first affrighted words to him were, "AT ALL

HAZARDS, CHALLENGE THAT MAN!" But that, as he would give no reason for it, and admitted that he

had not even known my name until he heard it called and I appeared, it was not done.

Both on the ground already explained, that I wish to avoid reviving the unwholesome memory of that

Murderer, and also because a detailed account of his long trial is by no means indispensable to my narrative, I

shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the ten days and nights during which we, the Jury, were kept

together, as directly bear on my own curious personal experience. It is in that, and not in the Murderer, that I

seek to interest my reader. It is to that, and not to a page of the Newgate Calendar, that I beg attention.

I was chosen Foreman of the Jury. On the second morning of the trial, after evidence had been taken for two

hours (I heard the church clocks strike), happening to cast my eyes over my brother jurymen, I found an

inexplicable difficulty in counting them. I counted them several times, yet always with the same difficulty. In

I touched the brother jurymen whose place was next me, and I whispered to him, "Oblige me by counting us."

He looked surprised by the request, but turned his head and counted. "Why," says he, suddenly, "we are

According to my counting that day, we were always right in detail, but in the gross we were always one too

many. There was no appearanceno figureto account for it; but I had now an inward foreshadowing of

The Jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all slept in one large room on separate tables, and we were

constantly in the charge and under the eye of the officer sworn to hold us in safekeeping. I see no reason for

suppressing the real name of that officer. He was intelligent, highly polite, and obliging, and (I was glad to

hear) much respected in the City. He had an agreeable presence, good eyes, enviable black whiskers, and a

When we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr. Harker's bed was drawn across the door. On the night of

the second day, not being disposed to lie down, and seeing Mr. Harker sitting on his bed, I went and sat

beside him, and offered him a pinch of snuff. As Mr. Harker's hand touched mine in taking it from my box, a

Following Mr. Harker's eyes, and looking along the room, I saw again the figure I expected,the second of

the two men who had gone down Piccadilly. I rose, and advanced a few steps; then stopped, and looked

round at Mr. Harker. He was quite unconcerned, laughed, and said in a pleasant way, "I thought for a moment

Making no revelation to Mr. Harker, but inviting him to take a walk with me to the end of the room, I

watched what the figure did. It stood for a few moments by the bedside of each of my eleven brother

jurymen, close to the pillow. It always went to the righthand side of the bed, and always passed out crossing

the foot of the next bed. It seemed, from the action of the head, merely to look down pensively at each

recumbent figure. It took no notice of me, or of my bed, which was that nearest to Mr. Harker's. It seemed to

go out where the moonlight came in, through a high window, as by an aerial flight of stairs.

Next morning at breakfast, it appeared that everybody present had dreamed of the murdered man last night,

I now felt as convinced that the second man who had gone down Piccadilly was the murdered man (so to

speak), as if it had been borne into my comprehension by his immediate testimony. But even this took place,

On the fifth day of the trial, when the case for the prosecution was drawing to a close, a miniature of the

murdered man, missing from his bedroom upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards found in a

hidingplace where the Murderer had been seen digging, was put in evidence. Having been identified by the

witness under examination, it was handed up to the Bench, and thence handed down to be inspected by the

Jury. As an officer in a black gown was making his way with it across to me, the figure of the second man

who had gone down Piccadilly impetuously started from the crowd, caught the miniature from the officer,

and gave it to me with his own hands, at the same time saying, in a low and hollow tone,before I saw the

DRAINED OF BLOOD." It also came between me and the brother juryman to whom I would have given the

miniature, and between him and the brother juryman to whom he would have given it, and so passed it on

through the whole of our number, and back into my possession. Not one of them, however, detected this.

At table, and generally when we were shut up together in Mr. Harker's custody, we had from the first

naturally discussed the day's proceedings a good deal. On that fifth day, the case for the prosecution being

closed, and we having that side of the question in a completed shape before us, our discussion was more

animated and serious. Among our number was a vestryman,the densest idiot I have ever seen at

large,who met the plainest evidence with the most preposterous objections, and who was sided with by two

flabby parochial parasites; all the three impanelled from a district so delivered over to Fever that they ought

to have been upon their own trial for five hundred Murders. When these mischievous blockheads were at

their loudest, which was towards midnight, while some of us were already preparing for bed, I again saw the

murdered man. He stood grimly behind them, beckoning to me. On my going towards them, and striking into

the conversation, he immediately retired. This was the beginning of a separate series of appearances, confined

to that long room in which we were confined. Whenever a knot of my brother jurymen laid their heads

together, I saw the head of the murdered man among theirs. Whenever their comparison of notes was going

It will be borne in mind that down to the production of the miniature, on the fifth day of the trial, I had never

seen the Appearance in Court. Three changes occurred now that we entered on the case for the defence. Two

of them I will mention together, first. The figure was now in Court continually, and it never there addressed

itself to me, but always to the person who was speaking at the time. For instance: the throat of the murdered

man had been cut straight across. In the opening speech for the defence, it was suggested that the deceased

might have cut his own throat. At that very moment, the figure, with its throat in the dreadful condition

referred to (this it had concealed before), stood at the speaker's elbow, motioning across and across its

windpipe, now with the right hand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to the speaker himself the

impossibility of such a wound having been selfinflicted by either hand. For another instance: a witness to

character, a woman, deposed to the prisoner's being the most amiable of mankind. The figure at that instant

stood on the floor before her, looking her full in the face, and pointing out the prisoner's evil countenance

The third change now to be added impressed me strongly as the most marked and striking of all. I do not

theorise upon it; I accurately state it, and there leave it. Although the Appearance was not itself perceived by

those whom it addressed, its coming close to such persons was invariably attended by some trepidation or

disturbance on their part. It seemed to me as if it were prevented, by laws to which I was not amenable, from

fully revealing itself to others, and yet as if it could invisibly, dumbly, and darkly overshadow their minds.

When the leading counsel for the defence suggested that hypothesis of suicide, and the figure stood at the

learned gentleman's elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed throat, it is undeniable that the counsel faltered in

his speech, lost for a few seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse, wiped his forehead with his

handkerchief, and turned extremely pale. When the witness to character was confronted by the Appearance,

her eyes most certainly did follow the direction of its pointed finger, and rest in great hesitation and trouble

upon the prisoner's face. Two additional illustrations will suffice. On the eighth day of the trial, after the

pause which was every day made early in the afternoon for a few minutes' rest and refreshment, I came back

into Court with the rest of the Jury some little time before the return of the Judges. Standing up in the box and

looking about me, I thought the figure was not there, until, chancing to raise my eyes to the gallery, I saw it

bending forward, and leaning over a very decent woman, as if to assure itself whether the Judges had

resumed their seats or not. Immediately afterwards that woman screamed, fainted, and was carried out. So

with the venerable, sagacious, and patient Judge who conducted the trial. When the case was over, and he

settled himself and his papers to sum up, the murdered man, entering by the Judges' door, advanced to his

Lordship's desk, and looked eagerly over his shoulder at the pages of his notes which he was turning. A

change came over his Lordship's face; his hand stopped; the peculiar shiver, that I knew so well, passed over

him; he faltered, "Excuse me, gentlemen, for a few moments. I am somewhat oppressed by the vitiated air;"

Through all the monotony of six of those interminable ten days,the same Judges and others on the bench,

the same Murderer in the dock, the same lawyers at the table, the same tones of question and answer rising to

the roof of the court, the same scratching of the Judge's pen, the same ushers going in and out, the same lights

kindled at the same hour when there had been any natural light of day, the same foggy curtain outside the

great windows when it was foggy, the same rain pattering and dripping when it was rainy, the same

footmarks of turnkeys and prisoner day after day on the same sawdust, the same keys locking and unlocking

the same heavy doors,through all the wearisome monotony which made me feel as if I had been Foreman

of the Jury for a vast cried of time, and Piccadilly had flourished coevally with Babylon, the murdered man

never lost one trace of his distinctness in my eyes, nor was he at any moment less distinct than anybody else.

I must not omit, as a matter of fact, that I never once saw the Appearance which I call by the name of the

murdered man look at the Murderer. Again and again I wondered, "Why does he not?" But he never did.

Nor did he look at me, after the production of the miniature, until the last closing minutes of the trial arrived.

We retired to consider, at seven minutes before ten at night. The idiotic vestryman and his two parochial

parasites gave us so much trouble that we twice returned into Court to beg to have certain extracts from the

Judge's notes reread. Nine of us had not the smallest doubt about those passages, neither, I believe, had any

one in the Court; the dunderheaded triumvirate, having no idea but obstruction, disputed them for that very

reason. At length we prevailed, and finally the Jury returned into Court at ten minutes past twelve.

The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the Jurybox, on the other side of the Court. As I took

my place, his eyes rested on me with great attention; he seemed satisfied, and slowly shook a great gray veil,

which he carried on his arm for the first time, over his head and whole form. As I gave in our verdict,

The Murderer, being asked by the Judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before sentence

of Death should be passed upon him, indistinctly muttered something which was described in the leading

newspapers of the following day as "a few rambling, incoherent, and halfaudible words, in which he was

understood to complain that he had not had a fair trial, because the Foreman of the Jury was prepossessed

against him." The remarkable declaration that he really made was this: "MY LORD, I KNEW I WAS A